I’m reading tonight’s Duke Diaryand I’m outraged. Yes, those men were wrongly targeted by Nifong, but I don’t want Kossacks to think this is unusual behavior by the prosecutors in this country. I keep changing the name of this Diary - nothing seems right.
The Duke case has come this far because Nifong probably thought if he applied enough pressure, he’d get a plea bargain from the players. It didn’t happen.
Was it because the players could afford private lawyers instead of public defenders? Was it because of the media coverage? All I know is these men are unique in that they got good legal advice and didn’t get mown over by the prosecutorial legal machine. ...Nancy Grace not withstanding.
Compare to Ann Couler's situation
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I started thinking of how lucky these Duke Lacrosse players are. That they had family with resources and how it could have been so different.
Let me tell you about a student who didn't have connected family with resources. I was enrolling her today in one of our medical programs. (HIPPA sorta pushes employers to screen out anyone with a felony conviction.) This student knows this and took me aside to talk about her situation.
She was convicted of stealing her husband’s car.
In Florida - a community property state. She gave me the papers. She showed me the details. They were splitting up. They had 2 cars – both in his name. He wanted both. She wanted to keep the one. He called the police. She’s arrested and charged with car theft. Her public defender said take the plea. She was given a generous 18 hours to think about it. She took the plea. Her case is adjudicated. She’s completed her probation and she’s still married to the guy who had her convicted of stealing their car! She’s a felon. You can't appeal a guilty plea. Her job prospects suck.....ok, ok, so, some of my students belong on Jerry Springer.
What I want to know is what were the prosecutor and public defender thinking?....and was the judge asleep on the bench???? And her husband....didn’t he think through the idea that by destroying her ability to earn a living, he was increasing the burden on himself? Then there’ Katherine Fernandez Rundle. The Dade County prosecutor. Does she pursue the same level of justice for her son as she dishes out to her defendants? It wasn’t the first time he got in trouble.
Now, I’m sure there are a lot of men out there rooting for this woman’s husband. Way to go! Stickl it to her!....Finally, a just ruling in a divorce case! But really, this is just a variation of what would have happened to the Duke Lacrosse players had Nifong been able to squeeze a guilty plea out of at least one team member. This has become justice, American Style. This how most cases play out in our court system.
According to the LewRockwell.com web site, a Libertarian site, Paul Craig Robert’s he writes in 2006:
The United States has a large number of wrongfully convicted. There are many reasons for this. One is that the US has the largest percentage of its citizens imprisoned of all countries in the world, including China. One of every 32 US adults is behind bars, on probation or on parole. Given a wrongful conviction rate, the larger the percentage of citizens in jails, the greater the number of wrongfully convicted.
(you know, just because he was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during Reagan’s administration, doesn’t mean he’s full of sh*t). He continues...
In the US the wrongful conviction rate is extremely high. One reason is that hardly any of the convicted have had a jury trial. No peers have heard the evidence against them and found them guilty. In the US criminal justice (sic) system, more than 95% of all felony cases are settled with a plea bargain.
Before jumping to the conclusion that an innocent person would not admit guilt, be aware of how the process works. Any defendant who stands trial faces more severe penalties if found guilty than if he agrees to a plea bargain. Prosecutors don’t like trials because they are time consuming and a lot of work. To discourage trials, prosecutors offer defendants reduced charges and lighter sentences than would result from a jury conviction. In the event a defendant insists upon his innocence, prosecutors pile on charges until the defendant’s lawyer and family convince the defendant that a jury is likely to give the prosecutor a conviction on at least one of the many charges and that the penalty will be greater than a negotiated plea.
Going to trial is no guarantee that an innocent person will be acquitted. Prosecutors routinely withhold exculpatory evidence and suborn perjury. Generally, jurors trust prosecutors and are unaware of their inventory of dirty tricks. Few jurors can tell the difference between bogus evidence and real evidence. For example, psychologists and criminologists have established beyond all doubt that eye-witnesses are wrong 50% of the time. Yet, jurors usually believe eye-witnesses unless they think the witness has it in for the defendant and is lying.
What bothers me is that wrongful pursuit of guilty pleas is rampant in our criminal system. Law and Order and it’s multiple spin offs fit the fascist slide of public opinion. As does CSI et al. There are bad people out there who do bad crimes and deserve stiff punishment, but I’m losing faith in the criminal system.
Susan Finch, reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that for the first time a Louisiana prosecutor has been disciplined by the Louisiana Supreme Court. This prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence in order to get a death sentence for a 16-year old. The witness told the police that she was not wearing her glasses or contact lens at the time of the shooting, but she was able to pick the suspect out of a lineup anyway. Her admission of being myopic did not reach the defense attorney. This is the status quo.
The prosecutor, Roger Jordan was given a 3 month suspension in December 2006 that will be waived if he has no more ethics violations for a year. Well, I think he believes he needs to be careful to not get caught for a year. He’s still fighting the ruling stating the discovery rule in question is vague and shouldn’t have been applied to him. All I know is if his actions were pursuable criminally by his fellow prosecutors....well, let’s just say he’d be pounded into a plea too.
In another posting Paul Craig Robert explains:
Conviction rates are believed to be a sign that prosecutors are protecting society from criminals, serving justice and being budget effective. To get high conviction rates, prosecutors engage in a wide variety of behavior that would have shocked earlier times. They suborn perjury, reward false testimony, withhold exculpatory evidence, and force defendants to incriminate themselves with plea bargains by piling on charges until the defendant or his lawyer gives up...... Regulators and prosecutors create crimes by how they interpret regulations. Defendants don’t know they have committed a crime until a prosecutor springs his interpretation on them. You can’t get laws more vague than this.
He goes onto explain He goes onto explainthat this is how the Martha Stewart and
Lynne Stewart convictions were obtained. Both Stewarts elected to go to trial and our current crime and punishment society produced juries that elected to buy into the distorted scenarios the prosecutors painted in each case.
The Duke case is not a stand alone case from the prosecution side. It’s a stand alone case because they are actually doing a good job at defeating the prosecution’s dirty tricks. I don't think these men are free and clear yet. Nifong is backed into a corner. I don't think he'll drop the case until he's forced to.